There will never be equality in Ireland until it is seen as a men's issue and men and women share work and domestic roles equally, a Justice official senior Department of Justice official said yesterday. Ms Sylda Langford, assistant secretary in the equality and law reform division, told an Oireachtas committee that more and more women now had third-level qualifications, and were tending to stay in the workforce. Some of them were earning more than their husbands, and because of that couples were taking the rational decision that the husbands should stay and mind the home. She said that until there was legal and financial recognition and protection of such arrangements it would be impossible to get real equality in Ireland.
Ms Langford said it was "positive" that the job as director of the new Equality Authority had been offered to a man. "Everything that gets feminised in a sense gets downgraded," she went on, pointing to the example of primary teaching, which was "almost entirely feminised, with the result that there are few male teachers as role models, whereas pupils need role models who are both male and female".
Asked about the Parental Leave Act, which provides 14 weeks unpaid leave for parents of babies or adopted children, Ms Langford said Ireland was 20-30 years behind other European states in this area and had to catch up gradually.
She said the Irish legislation had to take into account the different culture here, which placed a high value on women opting to stay at home. By not giving the parental leave in a block, as was done in other countries, but giving the option of one day's leave per week, men as well as women were encouraged to take that leave.
Ms Langford said labour shortages were making firms think creatively about their employment practices. She gave the example of some Dublin legal firms which were employing people between 7 and 10 in the evening, hours which were particularly suitable for women at home.
She said that with most families now having two children, women were taking only two years maternity leave out of a 40-year working life. Firms should plan "family-friendly" working practices to allow men and women with small children to take time out and then return to work.
Before 1979 Irish society had coped with women having to "reproduce the next generation by telling them they had to leave the workforce. That is now unacceptable. However, we haven't yet developed policies and programmes to deal with the new situation where they can't be told to leave the workforce."
Ms Langford said the Department hoped to have a "gender expert" employed by the end of the year to assist companies which were developing policies and programmes to take account of emerging gender and family issues. EU funding had been granted towards such a post.